A Black Hole Nibbles on a Star Every 22 Days, Slowly Consuming it

Astronomers working with NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory have spotted something unusual. The observatory’s X-Ray Telescope (XRT) has captured emissions from a supermassive black hole (SMBH) in a galaxy about 500 million light-years away. The black hole is repeatedly feeding on an unfortunate star that came too close. When an SMBH feeds on a star, …